


Casting Light

by chiiyo86



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blind Character, Captivity, Childhood Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Escape, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, Loss of status/authority, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Political Betrayal, Protectiveness, Tenderness, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: Kaj carries the blessing of Mualdir, the god of Light, which makes it his duty to rule his people. At least until he is overthrown by an ambitious priest and stripped from his position - and the worst part is that it seems to happen with the complicity of Kaj's oldest and dearest friend.





	Casting Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sombregods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombregods/gifts).



> That pairing dynamic and your letter were so interesting to me and I certainly hope that I did both justice. Enjoy this treat! :)

It was the quiet he liked most of all. Nowhere else in Ylikyvlo Castle was ever completely quiet, especially not for him. There were always servants milling about, guards making their rounds, priests and priestesses going about their duties, supplicants who’d come for an audience with the Light-Bearer. They might not shout or laugh as loudly as they would in the streets of Rietliava, but their presence gave the castle a buzzing, lived-in feeling. It wasn’t a bad thing in itself, but sometimes Kaj, who was ever so sensitive to sounds, enjoyed the appeased atmosphere of the Mualdir temple. 

It was the biggest temple dedicated to the god of Light in all of Uska, but even then it wasn’t a massive building. Temples were meant for peaceful, individual contemplation, while rituals were conducted in the heart of the castle proper. The wind was making the bells hanging at the main entrance jingle and Kaj could feel a cool breeze caress the nape of his neck. The smell of incense tickled his nose; when he’d been a child, it had made him sneeze at the most inappropriate moments, but he’d long since learned to rein it in. His breathing was deep and slow, controlled and rhythmic, and his awareness of everything so acute that it felt like his consciousness had stretched beyond the shell of his body, beyond the boundaries of Ylikyvlo Castle, beyond the city of Rietliava, casting itself over the whole realm of Uska the same way Mualdir’s benevolent rays did.

He heard a shuffling sound, probably one of the servants who found it hard to remain kneeling for so long. Kaj didn’t mind the position, but he knew it could be torture to people who weren’t used to it. He brought himself back, slowly and methodically, the way Kaisa had taught him when he was very little. 

“I’m ready to go,” he told Lyyti. 

“Very well, Your Highness,” she said.

As Mistress of Piety, Lyyti was supposed to accompany him everywhere. Her role was to be a witness to his enduring purity as the recipient of Mualdir’s blessing on earth. In fact, one of her duties should have been to hold his hand and guide him around, but Mederic, through whatever magic Mederic always worked, had managed to obtain that she didn’t do that anymore.

“He’s perfectly capable of walking on his own,” Mederic had said. “He’s done it since he was a child.”

Those were the exact words that Adalgisa, one of Kaj’s retainers who’d taken care of him as a child and Mederic’s mother, had said when Kaj was eight. Like her son, she had a gift for making things happen, and her husband Meinhard was always her quiet and steadfast support. It was thanks to her that Kaj had learned how to find his way in the permanent darkness that surrounded him, and he now knew Ylikyvlo Castle like the back of his hand. 

Kaj and his escort—Lyyti and two servants, Eelin and young Pirkka, a new addition—made their way out of the temple. They walked the length of the open gallery that overlooked Kirkris Peak, their sacred mountain. The view was supposed to be breathtaking, not that it would have meant anything to Kaj even if someone had bothered to describe it to him. Wind whipped at them as they walked, icy wind that brought with it the bitter smell of snow from the frozen peak. Kaj buried his hands a little deeper inside his long sleeves to shield them from its bite. 

Footsteps caught his attention—coming from the opposite way, they were a sound he was very attuned to. He knew the gait of every servant, every guard in the castle, as well as of the priests and priestesses and the members of the Council, but none of them were as familiar as this one.

The footsteps stopped right in front of him. “Your Highness,” Mederic said. A faint sound of rustling fabric told Kaj that Mederic was bowing, probably more for Lyyti’s benefit than for Kaj’s.

“Mederic,” Kaj said, feeling the urge to laugh for no reason. 

Mederic’s presence always had a way of making him feel light and mirthful. Maybe it was the memory of all the irreverent jokes that Mederic had whispered to him, unbeknown to the adults, when they were both young boys. They didn’t have a lot of opportunities to joke together now that Kaj had really taken over the mantel of Light-Bearer, but the memories persisted. 

“I didn’t expect to meet you here, Your Highness,” Mederic said. It was a lie—he knew Kaj’s routine better than anyone. “But would you have time to practice the tiirin dance with me?”

Lyyti tutted at him. “You’re not an aspiring priest anymore, Mederic,” she said. “You know that only priests and novices can practice the tiirin with His Highness.”

This was what she always said when Mederic made that suggestion. Kaj thought she probably felt like she had to say it, but he also knew that she always relented in the end. Like many in the castle, she was utterly charmed by Mederic. 

“Oh, Lyyti, don’t be so stern,” was Mederic’s predictable response. “Even though I don’t aspire to become a priest anymore, I still want to practice the sacred dance and there is no better partner than His Highness. You can’t blame me for my piety—not you of all people.”

“Piety is a good thing,” Lyyti said, as sternly as Mederic was accusing her of being. “But I’m not certain that this is what’s moving you. Oh, well. There’s nothing wrong in practicing a sacred ritual.”

The last part was said fondly—she’d known Mederic since he was a small boy, after all. She’d known Kaj for about as long, but of course it wasn’t the same thing. 

Kaj had to go back to his chambers so he could change into something more appropriate for the tiirin. Eelin and Pirkka helped him put on a loose tunic, cinched at the waist, linen pants and supple shoes, before Kaj went to meet Mederic at one of the guards’ training grounds, his escort trailing him as always. 

The training ground was an open courtyard, surrounded by a peristyle where benches were placed to allow the guards to rest after practice. While Kaj was getting changed, Mederic had gone to get ceremonial tiirin swords and he placed one in Kaj’s hand. The blade was light and blunt—this wasn’t meant to be a real fight. It was a sacred dance, a codified retelling of the fight between Mualdir and Odir, god of the Sky, at the end of which Mualdir had pierced the Sky and brought Light down to the earth. In the various cities and villages of Uska, two priests danced the tiirin during ceremonies, but here in Rietliava, the role of Mualdir in the dance always belonged to the Light-Bearer. It was such an honor to get the other role and dance with the Light-Bearer that it caused bitter rivalries among the priests, or so Mederic had told Kaj.

They each walked three steps apart—the steps symbolized the six days that the fight between Mualdir and Odir had lasted—and Kaj turned to face Mederic. The moves of the tiirin were etched in his mind, and the dance put him in a similar state to when he meditated in the temple—focused, present, but unfettered at the same time. He stepped up, their blades crossed, he took one step to the side, spun on himself and stabbed at Mederic, who dodged and sidestepped. 

It was getting hot now, enough that Kaj’s tunic was damp underarm from his sweat even though they had barely started. He could hear the clinking of Lyyti’s needles as she started knitting to pass the time. Very soon, that clinking stopped and was replaced by soft snoring.

“Right on cue,” Mederic murmured, so softly only Kaj would be able to hear it. Louder, he said, “Pirkka, His Highness is a little thirsty. Would you bring him some sweet tea?”

“Of course, sir.”

Pirkka scurried away, still new enough that he was eager to prove himself. Kaj lowered his sword, knowing what would come next. 

“What if she wakes up?” he said, because that was always his fear.

“You know how Lyyti sleeps,” Mederic said, although he was whispering. “And even if she wakes up, she’ll want to keep her denial plausible.”

Eelin was still awake and in the courtyard with them, but she was one of the servants Mederic claimed he was sure of. Kaj knew, from books Mederic had read to him, that there had been a time when the Light-Bearer had genuinely had the power he was supposed to hold. It wasn’t that Kaj thirsted for power, not to satisfy some base need of his. But he _was_ the reincarnation of all the Light-Bearers that had preceded him, he _was_ the one who bore Mualdir’s blessing and was meant to share it with his people. He couldn’t do that if he was no more than a figurehead for the different factions in the Council to fight over. So even if constant suspicion was a burden, he listened to what Mederic told him about the servants and about who they answered to. He sometimes wondered how Mederic knew that some of them could be trusted—what he did to ensure that—but he had to believe in at least one person and it felt natural that this person should be Mederic.

“Ready to swing?” Mederic asked.

“I am,” Kaj answered, his heart starting to beat faster at the thought of what they were about to do. 

Mederic took away Kaj’s sword and replaced it by a wooden stick that was about twice the length of his forearm. It was a dek, used in kinzu, the fighting art that the Royal Guards used to train in broadsword and sabre techniques. It was originally a Eutoni folk fighting style, and no member of the Aksina ruling class would ever think of learning it—and this was without mentioning that Kaj, as the Light-Bearer, shouldn’t be learning how to fight at all. But after he’d joined the Royal Guard and started to learn kinzu, Mederic had insisted that Kaz learn it too.

“You should know how to defend yourself,” he’d said.

“Why would I need to defend myself?” Kaz had asked.

“You never know what can happen. You should be ready for anything.”

What had made Kaj agree in the end, was that at no point had Mederic alluded to Kaj being blind. It hadn’t seemed to have occurred to him as an obstacle in learning a martial art, and that confidence, that faith in him, was what had finished convincing Kaj. Now he rather enjoyed it, which was becoming a problem, because he wasn’t sure he enjoyed it for the right reasons. 

“Get ready,” Mederic said.

Kaj protectively held the dek in front of his face and shifted his feet to adopt the right stance. It demanded a lot of focus to be able to determine where Mederic’s dek would hit by the slight displacement of air and the whistling sound it made, and to parry accordingly, but Mederic always started slow and then progressively gained in speed. Today the curve was steeper than usual and soon enough Kaj was having trouble keeping up with the pace, until he was too slow to parry and his wrist took the hit. 

“Are you all right?” Mederic asked, sounding like he was catching his breath.

Kaj massaged his stinging wrist. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken a hit during one of their practice sessions—harming the Light-Bearer was an offence that could cost someone their life, but it wasn’t as though Kaj was about to denounce Mederic. Something was off about Mederic’s attitude, though. He sounded on edge.

“Are _you_ all right?” Kaj asked. 

“Yes, I’m fine. If your wrist doesn’t hurt too much, let’s practice some attacks.”

They didn’t practice attacks very often. Kaj was infinitely more likely to have to defend himself than to attack someone, and his blindness put him at a huge disadvantage when he was in the offensive position. Still, he docilely made his dek twirl and whip the air to Mederic’s directions. Pirkka would be back soon with the sweet tea—that he wasn’t already made Kaj suspect that Mederic had put a few obstacles in his way so he would be absent longer.

“Bend your elbow,” Mederic instructed. “No, not that much. Lower your arm, you’re leaving yourself too open to attacks. Let me show you.”

In a few steps, Mederic was next to Kaj, a hand on his arm to guide it into the right position. Touching the Light-Bearer so freely was also an offence that was punishable by death. Kaj’s heart, which was already beating hard from the exertion, only sped up at the touch. The warmth of Mederic’s hand seeped through the flimsy fabric of his tunic and Kaj was aware of it at the exception of almost everything else.

“Let me show you,” Mederic said before he positioned himself behind Kaj’s back, taking hold of both of his arms.

Kaj’s breath caught in his throat. This wasn’t the first time Mederic had done this. It was only practical, after all, since he couldn’t demonstrate kinzu moves to Kaj the way he would to someone who could see. But it involved a number of things that broke Kaj’s concentration, such as Mederic’s chest pressing against his back, his arms around Kaj’s own, the smell of his sweat in Kaj’s nose, stray curls of his hair tickling the side of Kaj’s face. Kaj sucked in a breath, focusing on not letting his hands shake. Being the Light-Bearer meant a lot of things—among others, it meant that Kaj shouldn’t have intercourse, shouldn’t even let his thoughts wander in that direction. Puberty had been an awkward time, but Kaisa had guided him through it in that matter-of-fact way of hers. Eventually, after years of working hard on it, Kaj had managed to gain control over his body’s reactions to certain stimulations—but he’d never been able to get rid of the sick-sweet feeling that made his stomach flip at Mederic’s proximity. 

“Like this,” Mederic said, too close to Kaj’s ear for comfort, as if he were whispering a secret only Kaj should know. “Do you have it? Memorize that posture.”

His hand guided Kaj’s elbow into the right position, and although Kaj knew he should be paying attention and trying to commit it to memory, he found himself incapable of focusing on anything but Mederic’s presence. He forcibly steered his thoughts away from anything impure, concentrating instead on background noises—the cry of an eagle flying over their heads, Lyyti’s light snoring, and… Footsteps, coming their way. Was it Pirkka coming back? No, it couldn’t be, because it wasn’t the light step of one single youth, but rather the heavy thumping of a group.

“People are coming,” he told Mederic, who immediately stepped away and took the dek from Kaj’s hands. 

The thumping was getting closer, close enough that it woke up Lyyti. “What is it?” she asked. Then, more imperiously, “Why are you intruding on the Light-Bearer’s practice? I wasn’t warned of this!”

“You didn’t need to be.” 

The voice belonged to Janne, member of the Council. The footsteps pattered around the courtyard until Kaj felt like he was being surrounded. The people made metallic sounds as they moved, so they must be guards, but why were they here? What was Janne doing? Mederic had stepped away far enough that Kaj couldn’t feel his body heat anymore and he sorely missed it. 

“What’s the matter, Janne?” he asked the man in the most even tone he could muster. What Janne was doing was highly irregular, but it was hard to get indignant about it when what Kaj and Mederic had been doing was even more so. 

It was impossible to ignore a question directed at you by the Light-Bearer, and yet this was exactly what Janne did. “Arrest him,” he said to the guards.

Kaj was too stunned to react when they took hold of his arms. He could hear Lyyti’s incensed protests as she demanded that the guards release Kaj, echoed by more timid objections from Eelin. What struck him, what confounded him so completely that the only way to make sense of it was to think that it was all a dream, wasn’t the two women’s defense of him, but Mederic’s complete lack of reaction. Mederic wasn’t afraid of Janne and of his position in the Council—Mederic, as far as Kaj knew, wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. So why wasn’t _he_ commanding Janne to tell them what was going on, or told him that he didn’t have the right to touch Kaj?

“Mederic?” Kaj said faintly, stupefied to hear himself sounding like a confused child. 

Maybe he’d spoken too low for anyone to hear him. In any case, Mederic gave no reply to his pitiful call. The guards manhandled Kaj to lead him out of the courtyard, and, in an impossible escalation of horror, Kaj felt the cool edge of a blade against his neck.

“Is that really necessary?”

Kaj’s heart jumped in his chest—this was Mederic talking. Kaj had been wrong in thinking that Mederic would silently watch him get arrested by his own guards, of course he had. How could he have doubted his only friend?

“Do you have something to say, Mederic?” Janne asked in a cool, contemptuous voice. “Are the proceedings not to your liking? You should have voiced your concerns during the negotiations, then. For the position of Captain of the Royal Guard that you’ll get out of this, I would’ve thought that you’d have buried all of your misgivings very deeply.”

 _What?_ When Kaj tried to voice the question out loud, the word died in his throat. He must have understood Janne wrong. Mederic would never have willingly participated to a coup against him—because this was what was happening, as Kaj was starting to figure out, Janne seizing by force the position he’d always coveted for himself, the one of the High Priest who’d revealed the Light-Bearer.

“Mederic,” he said in a louder, stronger voice. “What’s going on?” No response from Mederic, and there were so many people around Kaj that he couldn’t even tell where his friend was. “Merry,” he insisted, not caring for once to act properly distant in public. “Say something. Tell me you’re not part of this. Tell me you haven’t—”

“Kaj,” Mederic said. At hearing his casual use of Kaj’s name, Lyyti gasped, as though propriety still mattered in the current circumstances. “Did you really think that I would be happy spending my entire life as your lackey?”

It was Mederic’s voice, but it wasn’t a tone Kaj had ever heard him use. This didn’t sound like Mederic at all. The guards’ hold on Kaj’s arms was painful, but not nearly as much as Mederic’s words. Kaj limply let the guards take him away, let them push him around and roughly pull him upward when he stumbled. He couldn’t think past the blow he’d just taken from the one person he’d trusted above all others. His mind was numb from the shock and that numbness had spread to the rest of his body, making him feel disconnected from it. The guards could tug on his arms and grip them as hard as they wanted, Kaj had raised above physical hurt. All those years of trying to master his body and he hadn’t known that all he had to do was to get his heart broken. 

They shoved him into a cell. It was probably dark, but at least this was something that didn’t inconvenience Kaj. It was also narrow, a small box made of four damp stone walls, with a straw mattress on a bench and a bucket where Kaj suspected he would have to relieve himself. He’d never come here, but he had made a point of creating for himself a mind map of the castle and he knew where he was: in the dungeon, deeply underground, where the worst prisoners were sent to rot while their fate was being decided by the High Court of Justice. The people who were thrown there were supposed to be so bad that no one could bear sullying the Light-Bearer’s mind with the description of their crimes, which was why Kaj never knew much about them. And in a cruel, ironical twist of fate, this was where he ended up, cut away from the blessed light of Mualdir.

Kaj pressed his back against a wall and let himself slide down until he was sitting on the beaten earth floor. Then he started laughing, a halted, uncontrollable chuckling tinged with bitterness. He, the Light-Bearer, locked in a dank, sunless cell! Wasn’t it a sign of his own arrogance that it had never occurred to him that this could happen? How fragile even the things you deemed most important were! If Kaj had ever relied on something other than his god, it was on Mederic’s friendship, and now, sitting against a hard wall of roughly hewn stones, it seemed so terribly naïve and childish of him. 

He dozed off and slept in fits, waking up often and being crushed each time by the memory of what had happened. Someone came to give him food and water, but that person remained silent under the barrage of questions that Kaj threw at them. He asked about the situation in the castle, about whether there had been any fighting, about what had happened to Kaisa. If Janne had decided to seize power, then Kaisa was as much in his way as Kaj was, probably even more so. She’d been the one who’d found Kaj at the age of four in Rjureid, the small fishing village he was born to. She’d followed the visions that Mualdir had sent her after she’d meditated six days at the source of the White River, and had known how to read the signs. She’d become High Priestess after that, had been Kaj’s tutor and his regent when he was still a child—for all intents and purposes, _she_ was the one with the real political power. Had she been arrested? _Executed?_ But the guard, whoever he or she was, wouldn’t give Kaj peace of mind. 

Kaj’s life until now had been paced with prayers, ceremonials and princely duties. In the cell, he had no notion of passing time, and with no communication with the outside, no idea of what was happening, he felt like he was stuck in stasis, a prisoner of one long expectant moment that stretched infinitely. At first, he was too dazed to even think about his situation or worry about what would happen to him. He sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees to keep his body warmth contained, and thought of nothing, his mind blank in a way that had nothing to do with the steady, anchoring feeling of _presence_ he got from meditation. 

He shook himself out of his stupor after a while—it was hard to tell how much time had passed exactly, but from the number of meals he’d gotten he thought it might have been a day or two. He didn’t know what was happening outside and what fate awaited him, but this was no excuse for passivity. He had to make sense of what he knew—that Janne had him arrested, and that he’d done it so brazenly, meant that he must have strong support to back him up. 

Janne of the House Koivisto. The man had always been devoured by ambition and bitterness, or so Mederic had said—just thinking his friend’s name caused sharp pain to stab Kaj’s chest, but he forced himself to ignore it. Mederic had unearthed old stories of the time when the Mualdir priests had been in a race to find the reincarnation of Light-Bearer Noora, blessed be her name. Kaj had only been one of the children brought to Rietliava as a potential reincarnation. All of them had been presented with a number of objects, some of which had received Mualdir’s blessing and some which had not, and Kaj’s high rate of success at identifying the objects had marked him as the Light-Bearer’s reincarnation. The other children had been sent back home, and their parents compensated, but from what Mederic had learned, Janne had loudly contested the results and had claimed that _his_ candidate, a young girl whom he’d renamed Jannika, was the true reincarnation. It would make sense, then, for Janne to legitimate his coup by claiming that he’d gotten proof of a mistake, or even of foul play from Kaisa. That thought only made Kaj more anxious about her fate, but to help her he had to be able to help himself too. 

He didn’t know if they were going to execute him or let him rot in this cell. He was fed regularly—not a lot, but enough that he wouldn’t starve—which meant that Janne, at least for the moment, cared about his survival. Kaj didn’t know if or when he would be released from his cell, so he couldn’t rely on that; he couldn’t be expecting any help from outside either. For the first time in his life he was alone and had to rely on himself. He knew what he had to do, that he had to escape and regain his rightful place as the Light-Bearer, but he also knew how unlikely it was that he would manage it. Still, he had Mualdir’s blessing and that had to count for something. He wouldn’t be worthy of his god if he just lay down and waited for death. 

Even in the foggy stupefied state he’d been when the guards had brought him to the cell, Kaj had still instinctively kept track of the route they were following, and he knew exactly where his cell was in relation to the rest of the castle. If he dug himself a tunnel in the right direction, he would find himself in one of the castle’s cellars, which wouldn’t be watched as closely as the dungeon. 

He spent some time pinpointing the best spot where to dig, but then found himself faced with the problem of what he could use to do it. He was only served flat bread and a mush of brown squash that he ate with his fingers, so he didn’t have any opportunity to steal a utensil. He explored every inch of his cell with his fingers, trying to find something that he could use. He tried to shake loose one of the stones from the wall, tried to get a splinter from the bench he slept on. He eventually figured out that part of the hook at the end of the bucket’s handle was rusted, and that if he tugged hard enough he could take off the handle. As a digging tool, it wasn’t very efficient, but it was all that Kaj had that wasn’t his hands. His tunnel would probably take months to be done and anything could happen in the meantime, but at least Kaj was doing something.

When the guard came to give him his meal, Kaj placed the bucket in front of the hole he was digging. He had no way of knowing if the bucket hid the hole properly, but he hoped that the cell was dark enough that the guard couldn’t tell. He or she or them—he didn’t know if it was the same person every day, since they never said a word to him—never raised the alarm. When he wasn’t digging, Kaj prayed, asking for guidance to his god and to his previous incarnations. And when he wasn’t digging or praying or sleeping curled up on himself on his straw mattress, he thought about Mederic. 

Mederic’s betrayal was a wound that Kaj couldn’t stop poking to check if it still hurt as sharply as when it’d been inflicted in the first place. It still hurt. It hurt sometimes so badly that it took Kaj’s breath away. There were moments when his chest swelled with hot anger, anger at Mederic and himself. He’d always had an even temper, cultivated by the education Kaisa had given him, so the feeling was novel but not unwelcome, as it made the hurt more tolerable. At other times, crushing despair weighed him down and he wondered why he was even trying to escape, why anything mattered in a world where Mederic could sell him for an enviable position at the court. Captain of the Royal Guard was the best position an Euloni commoner could aspire to, and Mederic had even joked in the past about getting it one day, but not even in his darkest nightmares had Kaj imagined that his friend would go to such lengths for the sake of his ambition. 

Kaj never let the despair keep him down for too long. He was the Light-Bearer and he had a duty to his people. His personal hurt couldn’t matter more than the fate of his country. 

Days, weeks passed, and Kaj’s hole progressed at an unbearably slow pace. Digging hurt his hands, which had never had to do hard labor before, and blisters swelled and then burst, leaving raw skin behind. He got progressively weaker from too little food—he’d always led a frugal lifestyle, as befitted the Light-Bearer, but he’d never had to go hungry before. At night the hunger tormented him and he lay on his mattress unable to sleep, his arms wrapped around his middle. The cold was his other enemy. They’d never let him change from the light linen tunic and pants he’d worn to practice with Mederic, and they were no obstacle for the damp, insidious cold of the cell. Unlike the bite of ice and snow, the damp cold settled slowly, quietly, seeping into his body, down to his bone marrow, until warmth had become no more than an abstract concept. The stench from the bucket was another constant bother; even when it was empty, Kaj’s sensitive nose picked up hints of the foul smell that was clinging to it.

For the first time in a long while he had dreams of his early childhood, of his mother’s soft hands and of the rumble of his father’s voice. He didn’t even remember their names, as Kaisa got annoyed when he mentioned his parents. Adalgisa used to talk about how he’d cried unconsolably for his first few weeks at the castle; Kaj had always felt mortification at hearing this story, but now he thought he could remember the sort of longing he’d felt then and wished he could still weep like a little boy. Maybe tears would bring him relief. 

It was an unchanged, monotonous hell. Kaj couldn’t tell day from night, and past the first few weeks he stopped trying to make sense of how long he’d been a prisoner. So when change came, he was woefully unprepared for it. 

The first sign of something unusual happening was the voices. The guards never spoke to him, and Kaj did hear them talk sometimes, but always in subdued, bored voices. The new voice had a vivid ring to it, sounding like someone who was intruding on their dull underground world to demand something. This was the part that made Kaj sit up on his bench; what made his heart stutter in his chest was that he’d recognized Mederic’s voice.

He forced himself to tame his expectations. Mederic had made his position very clear on the day Kaj had been arrested. Maybe he’d come here because Kaj was going to be trialed, and Janne had thought that Kaj was less likely to make trouble if Mederic was the one to escort him—although why would Janne be wary of a blind man of twenty-five? 

The door to his cell creaked open. Kaj held his breath. He worried, as usual, that the guard would see the hole he was digging. He worried that Mederic was standing at the door, getting his first look at Kaj in weeks and think… Why did it matter, what he thought? They were nothing to each other anymore; in his darkest moments, Kaj even wondered if they’d ever been anything at all. 

“Get up,” a voice said.

This wasn’t Mederic, but most likely one of the guards. Kaj pushed himself up, wavered a little and made his way to the door, tottering on numb legs. The sound of clinking metal made Kaj nervous in anticipation of being shackled, an indignity he hadn’t suffered yet, but another voice, Mederic’s voice, interjected, “That won’t be necessary.”

“You sure?” the guard said. “We don’t usually let prisoners out unshackled.”

“Look at him: he’s blind, weakened. What do you think he’ll do to me? But if you’d rather discuss this with High Priest Janne…”

“No, it’s all right,” the guard said hurriedly. “Have it your way.”

A hand circled Kaj’s arm and tugged at it roughly. Mederic. He was standing right there, close enough that Kaj could smell leather, sweat and soap from him. Kaj felt dizzy, feeble, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to walk.

Mederic didn’t give him a choice. He marched them through the underground corridors, up steep stone stairs, apparently uncaring if Kaj stumbled or tripped, or was on the verge of passing out. Suddenly they were outside, fresh air and a feeling of open space catching Kaj off-guard. Wind mixed with a little rain slapped him in the face, and for an instant he couldn’t tell up from down anymore and clutched Mederic’s arm like a drunk man. 

A solid hand caught his shoulder and stopped him from pitching forward. “We can’t stop now,” Mederic whispered to his ear, his voice strained and urgent. “You have to keep walking. We don’t have much time.”

 _Much time for what?_ Something was wrong, but Kaj felt too stunned from the excess of fresh air, too scattered by the brutal change of pace after being locked away on his own for so long. His mind wandered, although by some miracle he kept walking and didn’t twist an ankle on his way, and the next time he came back to himself, he could smell the pungent odor of horses and knew that they must be in the stables. He’d never actually been there, having never been taught how to ride a horse, and only knew the smell because it sometimes clung to Mederic’s clothes. 

“What—” he muttered, so confused by the situation that he wondered whether he wasn’t dreaming.

“I know you’ve never ridden a horse before, but the only thing you need to do is to hold on to me.” As Mederic talked, there were unfamiliar sounds—leather straps snapping, metallic buckles clinking, a horse snorting and clapping its hooves onto the paved floor. “We don’t have a lot of time. I’ll—”

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

Leather squeaked and the horse neighed, maybe in protest of Mederic fastening something too tightly. “I’m saddling a horse,” Mederic said, so calmly that it was only because Kaj had known him for so long that he could detect an edge to his tone.

“I can see that,” the man said. “Why didn’t you wake up one of the stable boys to do it? And it’s so early. What business do you have at this hour?”

“It’s precisely because it’s so early that I didn’t want to wake up one of the boys for something I’m capable of doing myself. As for what business, I have urgent matters to attend on High Priest Janne’s behalf.”

By now, Kaj was getting puzzled that the man hadn’t asked about his presence. Kaj was leaning against a wooden pillar, so for all he knew the man might be unable to see him from where he was standing. He didn’t dare make a sound and barely let himself breathe in case it alerted the man to his presence. His mind was still too fuzzy to grasp what was happening, but he knew at least that Mederic very much didn’t want that man to know what he was doing. 

“Well, I’m up, now. Might as well—” Footsteps approached, then stopped. The man made a surprised sound. “Oh, Captain Mederic. I didn’t recognize you, sir.”

“It’s all right, Volker,” Mederic said, warm and friendly, even though Kaj could still hear that edge he’d noticed before. “Sorry if I woke you up. Thank you for offering to help, but I really don’t need you. I’m almost done. And High Priest Janne wants me to leave immediately.”

“Ah, in that case. I wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

“Thank you.”

Kaj kept an ear out for Volker’s receding footsteps, and it was only when he couldn’t hear them anymore that he allowed himself to let out a slow exhale. 

“Someone’s going to notice that something is wrong very soon,” Mederic said. “We have to go.”

“Go where? What are you doing, Mederic? I thought that—”

“Later,” Mederic said, interrupting Kaj as he was working himself into a rant. “I promise, I’ll explain everything later.” He was suddenly much closer, the warm palm of a hand pressing against Kaj’s neck. “Can you do it? Can you trust me?”

Kaj wanted to get angry at the question. How dare Mederic talk to him about trust, after he’d let Kaj rot in a cell for weeks? But all he did was swallow hard, his heart thundering in his chest. Almost against his will, he gave Mederic a slow, reluctant nod.

“Thank you. We have to go now.”

Mederic helped Kaj get on top of the horse. The beast stayed more or less still throughout the process, but to feel it alive under him, shaking its head, making noises, was a disconcerting experience. The unusual sensation of height gave him vertigo. He gripped the saddle while waiting for Mederic to hoist himself, afraid that the horse would just take off with no warning. 

“Put your arms around my waist,” Mederic said once he was settled. 

Kaj loosely circled his arms around Mederic, self-consciousness grasping him. It was silly that out of everything that had happened in the last hour, _this_ was what made him feel alert for the first time. Mederic pulled at Kaj’s arms a little impatiently to force him to secure his hold.

“Hold tight or you’ll fall,” he said. 

Heat rose to Kaj’s face and his lungs tightened; he hadn’t held anyone in his arms in years and to feel Mederic’s solid body so close was too much stimulation for his weakened senses. When Mederic started the horse with a swift kick of his heels, the sudden movement had Kaj instinctively gripping him tighter and another wave of embarrassment overcame him. Whipping wind ruffled his hair and burned his cheeks, so he chose to focus on that rather than on the feeling of muscles rolling in Mederic’s back. 

“Let’s hope no one tries to stop us,” Mederic murmured. “The guard is minimal at this time of the day, and I arrange it so our less efficient elements would be on duty, but…”

Mederic had been arranging his escape. It was embarrassing that it was only dawning on Kaj now, but in his defense, he’d had a harrowing few weeks and didn’t know what to believe on a lot of things. _I’m escaping._ We _’re escaping together_. Hope and relief—that he would soon be free, that Mederic hadn’t abandoned him after all—were heady feelings and they made him lose track of the next few moments. He was alerted that they were outside of the castle by a change in the way the air smelled—sharped, purer, less encumbered by the scents of people. Mederic had kicked the horse to make it trot faster, when a chorus of voices echoed behind them.

“Hey, who’s there?” Mederic’s shoulders tensed and Kaj heard him curse under his breath. “Hey! Isn’t that—” There was a jumble of different voices overlapping each other and then the first voice shouted again, “Stop right there! In the name of the Light-Bearer, stop!”

Mederic cursed again and kicked his heels, making the horse break into a gallop. Kaj was thrust into Mederic’s back and pressed his face into his shoulder, terrified that he was going to get thrown off the horse. He may be blind, but this didn’t stop another bout of vertigo from assailing him. Something hissed past his ear—an arrow, Kaj understood, and he was suddenly all too conscious of how exposed his back was. A few more arrows whistled as the horse galloped at a speed that Kaj hadn’t thought was even possible. One arrow flew so close to his face that Kaj felt the air quiver against his cheek, then there was a muffled cry of pain and Kaj knew that Mederic had been hurt.

“Mederic?” he said, almost yelling the word in his friend’s ear. 

“I’m all right! We can’t stop now!”

They must have been out of reach of the guards’ bows, because Kaj couldn’t hear arrows anymore. Instead he heard horses neighing and the thunder of clapping hooves. Mederic yelled something at his own horse that made it go impossibly faster. Kaj felt something warm and sticky drip on his arm, the stench of blood unmistakable. Fear gripped his heart—fear for Mederic, but also the stupid, selfish fear that Mederic would fell off the horse and leave Kaj to handle the beast on his own. _Light, won’t you stop being a child about this? He’s risking his life for you!_

At that thought, a gentle warmth suffused him and thawed a little of the fear. This was a fact to cherish, and Kaj sent a quick prayer of thanks to Mualdir, then another to ask for the strength and fortitude to face the possibility of death. Death wasn’t something the Light-Bearer should fear, as the blessing he carried meant that he would always be reborn, but in that instant, with the guards shouting directions at each other and the wind whistling in his ears, Kaj felt all of twenty-five and he very much didn’t want to die. 

“I’m trying to lose them!” Mederic yelled, his voice tense with pain. “Hold tight, I’m going to—”

The swerve almost made Kaj lose his grip on Mederic and he let out an involuntary yelp. He felt the horse’s muscles contract under him, and it was the only warning he got before they were airborne for a few moments. The landing was rough. Kaj’s stomach somersaulted and his teeth clacked so hard he almost bit his tongue. Tree branches lashed his face. They were tearing through a forest now, brambles and branches catching Kaj’s clothes and scratching his bare skin. 

They galloped for a very long time, until the noises from the guards after them were gone and Kaj was ready to drop from the horse out of exhaustion. The horse had slowed down to a trot and Mederic was silent, his breathing loud and harsh.

“Mederic?” Kaj asked uneasily. “Are you all right?”

It was only because he still had his arms around Mederic that he felt his friend start to pitch forward. He tightened his hold to keep Mederic from falling off the horse, calling his name with increasing urgency, “Mederic? Mederic, say something. Merry!”

“I’m fine,” Mederic said, but his words slurred a little. “We’re almost there. It’s all right.”

“Almost where?” Kaj asked, but Mederic was silent again, although at least it didn’t feel like he was about to fall anymore. 

Eventually Mederic made the horse come to a stop. He slipped down from the beast’s back, and the sound he made when landing on the ground betrayed the fact that he hadn’t completely been able to control his fall. He muffled a groan, muttered a curse in a voice so low Kaj couldn’t make it out, then said, “Get down, now. I’ll catch you.”

Throwing his leg over the horse’s back so both of his legs were on the same side was harder than it should have been. Letting go of the saddle was another act of faith, but he trusted—finally, after so many weeks of working through the sour feeling of betrayal—that Mederic wouldn’t let him fall. And he didn’t, but as Kaj could feel Mederic’s solid arms securely wrapped around him, guiding him down to the ground, he could also feel Mederic waver under his weight. After Kaj had reached the ground, they both remained like this for another moment, with Kaj slumped against Mederic’s chest, his face buried in the crook of his shoulder, neither of them too steady on their feet. 

“Merry,” Kaj said, his voice trembling unwittingly. The skin of Mederic’s neck was warm and smooth, and Kaj felt something inside him break or unravel, weeks of pain and worry coming to an end, the weight of it all almost knocking him out. “Merry, I—”

“We have to get inside,” Mederic said, then cleared his throat. “We have to—Let me tie down the horse and we’ll get inside. They’ll be some supply, um… I’ll be back.”

While Mederic was gone, Kaj was left with his own thoughts and he started wondering where they were. Even if he’d been able to keep track of their journey, he hadn’t left the castle grounds since Kaisa had brought him there as a small child and he knew almost nothing about the geography of the surrounding area. When Mederic came back, he did something he’d never done before, which was to take Kaj’s hand and lead him inside a building. Kaj almost snatched his hand away and protested that he didn’t need to be guided, but he wasn’t at the castle anymore. He didn’t know the layout of the building, didn’t know anything about what was around him and what sort of obstacle he might encounter. He was, for the first time in years, truly _blind_. 

Once they were inside, Mederic stumbled and Kaj caught him, feeling him sweat abnormally under the woolen fabric of his clothes. “You need to sit down,” Kaj said. 

“Y-yeah, we should both—” When Mederic tried to move away from Kaj, he wobbled again.

“Lean against me,” Kaj said, even though he felt weak and shaky. Mederic needed help and there was no one else around. “Tell me where I can sit you.”

“Right, on the right. Five, no, seven steps on your right. There—there’s a bed.”

Walking through an unknown room was a terror that Kaj had believed was relegated to his early childhood memories. He’d never thought he’d have to do it again, but seven steps were nothing and Mederic would have told him if there had been anything in their way. Holding Mederic by the elbow with one hand, he extended the other one until it bumped into a wooden headboard. He deposed Mederic on the bed, delicately, then let his hands linger on his friend’s shoulders, reluctant to let go and eager to help at the same time. 

“What can I do?” he asked, feeling at a loss.

“There’s a chest—Nevermind, I can do it myself.” With his hands still on Mederic’s shoulders, Kaj could feel him try to rise up.

“Don’t get up,” he said, pushing his friend down. “Whatever is needed, I’ll do it. Just tell me where that chest is.”

“Go back to—to where we were standing before, then walk forward five steps—I’ll tell you if you went the right direction—then to your left, three steps.” Mederic’s voice was faint, almost as if he were on the verge of passing out. “Kneel down to the floor and you’ll find a chest. Drag it back to me… Can you do it? You look… Kaj, you look so…”

“I can do it,” Kaj said firmly. “Just stay put.”

In an odd way, having a task to accomplish had made all but disappear Kaj’s exhaustion and lingering weakness. He knew they were there, from a certain weariness in his limbs, which felt like the bones had turned to water, but he could push the sensation to the back of his mind and focus on what he had to do. It was good to finally have a grasp on what was going and be able to do more than just endure. 

He walked small, cautious steps across the room, so Mederic had to adjust his directions, but he managed to find the chest and even to pull it up to Mederic, although that last part happened through sheer force of will. He found clothes and bandages inside the chest—obviously, this was a safe house that Mederic must have arranged a while ago, and he’d apparently thought of the eventuality that one of them would be injured. Once he had the chest, Mederic took over and bandaged his own wound, although from the groans and hisses that Kaj could hear, this wasn’t an easy or pleasant task. While he did that, Kaj stood by his side and fidgeted. A sort of nervous energy had taken hold of him and he felt like he had to either _do_ something or fall apart.

“What else can I do?” he asked anxiously. “What do you need?”

“I need for you to sit down. Sit down before you keel over, Kaj.”

Kaj felt a warm hand circle his wrist to tug him down and then he collapsed rather than sat down on the bed, sagging against Mederic’s side. They sat like this for a moment, leaning against each other and breathing at the same rythm. A wet blanket of exhaustion fell over Kaj’s shoulders, and if at that moment guards had barged inside the room he didn’t think he would have been able to lift a finger in reaction.

“Where are we?” he mumbled. His tongue felt numb and heavy in his mouth, and his eyelids were drooping without his consent.

“In the western part of the Whispering Forest, just outside of Kirkeden.”

Kaj hummed in response, although to be honest he only had the faintest idea of where that was. His glaring ignorance was making him even more uncomfortable than it had before.

“You’ve come for me,” he said. “I thought—”

“I’m sorry.” Mederic’s hand was on his wrist again, clasping it with sudden ardor. “I’ve known that something was happening for months, that Janne was up to no good. He’d had Jannika come back from Leirvik, had been maneuvering to get most of the Council on his side. He tried to have Kaisa killed.”

“Kaisa!” Kaj exclaimed, straightening up with a jolt. “What happened to her? She isn’t—”

“She managed to get away,” Mederic said with a squeeze to Kaj’s wrist. “I don’t know where she is, but if Janne had found her I would have heard about it. Kaj, I’m… so sorry I couldn’t tell you about what was going on, but you were watched constantly. The best I could do was to make Janne believe that I was on his side, that I was tempted by the things he could offer me. I would have tried to kill him, but that would have given the opportunity to some of the other rats in his clique to take over—Hilkka, or maybe Eino. I would have tried to kill Jannika too, but then Janne would have merely needed to pretend he’d found her reincarnation to keep his position.”

Those casual mentions of murder made Kaj flinch a little, but he mostly felt too numb for outrage. “The signs wouldn’t be right for it, though,” he said. “Someone would notice that. Since Jannika isn’t the Light-Bearer, the reincarnation circle wouldn’t be triggered.”

Mederic shifted against his side. “I guess not. But Janne would only need to fake the signs.”

“What about the test, though? Janne would have to face Mualdir’s wrath if he faked the test. I doubt his treachery is going to stay unpunished in any case.”

“Maybe not,” Mederic said.

Something about his tone bothered Kaj. “You don’t sound like you believe it. Do you really think that Mualdir would stand Janne sullying his legacy on earth?”

“I… wouldn’t know. My faith isn’t as steadfast as yours.”

“But you believe that _I_ ’m the Light-Bearer, don’t you? You believe that I carry Mualdir’s blessing. Why would you risk so much to rescue me if you didn’t believe?”

“I believe that—” The bedsheets rustled when Mederic changed positions, and the hand holding Kaj’s wrist slid down until they were palm against palm. The warmth of Mederic’s palm spread through Kaj’s hand like pure, concentrated sunlight. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe in the gods, Kaj, but I’m not so sure about their intentions toward us. Nor do I concern myself too much with what they might think of me. If I have to get punished for my actions, then so be it. As for why I risked myself to save you… Do you really have to ask? Do you think that I could have watched them take you, maybe _execute_ you, and do nothing? I’ve already had to watch over the years as they trapped you, bound you, made you as helpless as possible so they could turn you into a _symbol_ —”

Kaj’s face grew hot with a strange kind of embarrassment. “This wasn’t as bad as you say. I know that some in the Council have tried to limit my political power and my movements, but—”

“Light, Kaj, they _blinded_ you! They gave you necron leaf when you were five so that light would leave your eyes forever!”

“This is tradition. You know why it has to be that way: the Light-Bearer mustn’t—”

“—be fooled by appearances. I know the rationale. But you remember my trip to Estros, right?” 

Of course Kaj remembered. Mederic had left on a risky journey to Estros, beyond the Bellowing Mountains, all because he claimed he’d heard that the country had a writing system for the blinds that he wanted to bring back so Kaj could read. He’d left for six months, and each day had felt like an eternity to Kaj, the possibility that Mederic would never come back haunting him relentlessly. In the end Mederic had returned, and if Kaj had been a little disappointed that the Council and the priesthood wouldn’t let them use the writing system to translate books for Kaj, then at least he’d had his friend back and couldn’t thank Mualdir enough for that blessing. 

“Yes,” he said simply. “I remember.”

“There I found some books about the history of our country, books that are impossible to find here. The tradition of blinding the Light-Bearer as a child is barely 80 years old.”

“80 years old?” It would have concerned Light-Bearer Noora and maybe Light-Bearer Tenho—blessed be their names. Only two in a lineage of twenty-four Light-Bearers. “This can’t be.”

“I looked for more information about it. I asked—discreetly—some people here. This is true. And this can’t be Mualdir’s will—or if it is, then I don’t want to worship a god who disables small children for his service.”

“Mederic,” Kaj said in what he’d meant to be a chiding tone, but which came out weak and pleading.

“But I don’t care about Mualdir’s will,” Mederic said. His hands had slipped up Kaj’s arms and he was now holding him by the shoulders. “I don’t care about Janne, or about the Council, or about whatever political scheming I had to partake in. I care about _you_. All the risks I took were for you, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”

“I care about you too,” Kaj said faintly. “Of course I do. You’re my friend. My only friend, most likely.”

One of Mederic’s hands left Kaj’s shoulder to cup his cheek. The skin on Kaj’s face was chilled from the cool temperature in the room and that touch was a shocking spot of heat against it. 

“You know what I mean,” Mederic said, his voice reduced to a whisper. “You know _how_ I care about you.”

And Mualdir help him, Kaj did know. He may have been sheltered, he may have been _trapped_ , as Mederic had put it, but he wasn’t so innocent and he wasn’t a fool. He knew the yearning he’d suppressed for many years, that fire inside him that flared whenever Mederic was near. Contrary to Mederic, he believed in Mualdir’s blessing, and in his duty, and in the sanctity of his own person. If he’d been an ordinary man, he wouldn’t have fought so hard against the only thing he’d ever truly desired. But his strength had been sapped by the shock of his arrest and by the weeks spent in a narrow, lightless cell. He didn’t have enough of it left to fight anymore.

“Yes,” he said. “I know. I care about you much the same way.”

Mederic must have brought his face closer to Kaj’s, because Kaj could feel the heat of his breathing intermittently tickle his skin. His heart pounded in his throat, making it impossible to talk or even swallow, and he waited with a sense of inevitability for the feeling of Mederic’s mouth against his. Instead, Mederic lifted the hand that he was still holding and Kaj felt the soft press of lips on the inside of his wrist. He sucked in a breath and Mederic dropped another kiss at the center of his palm.

“Tell me to stop,” Mederic said. 

Kaj couldn’t move or breathe or speak. He was afraid he would shatter to a thousand pieces if he did any of those things. In fact, he was absolutely terrified, a terror that was wholly different from the one he’d felt as they were running away from the castle on horseback. It wasn’t a fear of physical danger—he knew Mederic would never hurt him. It was a fear of betraying everything his life had been built on until now, of making all of it pointless. But if the ritual blindness was a lie invented by greedy noblemen who wanted to tame the Light-Bearer, what else about Kaj’s life might be false?

Mederic’s lips continued to tease the middle of Kaj’s palm while his hand caressed the side of his face, a thumb brushing the apple of his cheek. Kaj let out a long trembling exhale.

“Tell me to stop,” Mederic repeated in a barely audible voice, and Kaj could only murmur in return, “ _Don’t_.”

This time Mederic brought their mouths together and Kaj’s heart skipped a beat when their lips touched. He stopped breathing and didn’t move as Mederic’s kiss gently pinched his lower lip. Mederic’s mouth moved over his own, his hand burying itself in Kaj’s tangled hair. Kaj was intensely aware of every point of contact between Mederic’s body and his own—their knees touching, the weight of Mederic’s palm on the back of his skull, Mederic’s other hand linked with his. Something deep in his chest broke and a spark of hot, uncontrolled desire was let loose. He reached out with his free hand and hooked it behind Mederic’s back, making Mederic eagerly lean in so that their chests were pressed together. Kaj felt Mederic’s ribs heave with his breathing, felt his heart thump behind them. His hand roamed across Mederic’s back, starved for contact, and when Mederic’s tongue licked his lips he parted them, welcoming a deeper kiss with an abandon that he’d never known before. They kissed hungrily, desperately, and Kaj didn’t have enough of his two hands to explore the bumps of Mederic’s spine, the edges of his shoulder blades, the ridges of his ribcage. 

Mederic stopped kissing his mouth to kiss the side of his neck and the hollow of his collarbone. “Mederic,” Kaj gasped, overwhelmed. He had to contain a violent shudder. “Merry, Merry.”

The burning lust had left his chest and drifted down, setting fire to the pit of his stomach and then lower still. A tightness in his groin made him clasp Mederic’s arm unthinkingly—when Mederic hissed in pain, Kaj realized he’d gripped his injured arm. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling apart from Mederic. “I didn’t—I need a moment.”

“It—it’s fine,” Mederic said, although the pained edge of his voice told Kaj that it wasn’t fine. “You—do you want me to… help you deal with that?”

The thought that Mederic could see the tell-tale signs of _that_ consumed Kaj with embarrassment. His mind had cleared a little and awkwardness had doused some of the lust. _What are you doing?_ He wasn’t ready to throw away everything he’d ever stood for. He was the Light-Bearer. He might have to redefine what that meant, but he couldn’t just cast off his vows as though they’d never had any meaning.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’ll go away on its own.”

“All right,” Mederic said in the remote, contained voice that meant he was disappointed. 

Kaj reached out again and cupped the back of his head so that their foreheads touched, making their noses brush too. 

“Too many things are changing at once,” he said. “I’ve lived an unchanged existence for so long. There are a lot of things I need to reconsider.”

“I understand.”

“But I love you.” Mederic drew a sharp breath through his nose at the words and Kaj went on, “I have always loved you, Merry, but I didn’t think it would help either of us to say it. Whatever happens now, know that I will keep on loving you until my spirit passes onto the next Light-Bearer. Maybe even longer than that.”

“I love you too,” Mederic said in a choked voice, before pressing another soft, chaste kiss on Kaj’s mouth. “You are my heart. I want you to do whatever you want with your life. I will never pressure you or try to force my desires onto you. Others have done enough of it already.”

“Thank you. Let’s lie down for a moment. We’re both very tired.”

They reclined on the bed, arms around each other. Kaj’s exhaustion had come back with a vengeance and it was getting so very hard to think. As his eyes started to close, he was jolted back to awareness by a sudden thought.

“What if the guards find us? We can’t fall asleep.”

“Sleep. I’ll keep watch.” 

“You’re injured,” Kaj protested.

“You’re exhausted and malnourished. And we won’t be on our own for long. People are coming to help, and when they’re here, I’ll be able to rest too.”

“People?”

“Did you think I was the only one still supporting you?” Mederic kissed Kaj’s temple. “Of course more people are coming. Reliable people, that I made sure we could trust.”

“Oh.” If he’d been less worn out, Kaj was sure he’d have been able to feel the appropriate amount of gratitude at that announcement. “All right, then.”

He laid a hand on Mederic’s chest, spreading his fingers there, and let his eyes close. He was lulled to sleep by the feeling of Mederic’s strong, steady heartbeat.


End file.
